


Dead is the new alive

by Ischa



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Creepy, Dark, Disturbing Themes, M/M, Sexual Content, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-24
Updated: 2011-07-24
Packaged: 2017-10-21 17:35:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/227797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ischa/pseuds/Ischa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Malfoy is supposed to be dead, but why is Harry seeing him everywhere nevertheless?</p><p>
  <i>“It’s because you feel guilty.” Hermione says. Wow, he thinks, really? But sarcasm is uncalled for.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>“I don’t.”</i>
  <br/>
  <i>“Harry…”</i>
  <br/>
  <i>“God, yeah…maybe. It’s…you know. I saved his life.” Harry answers because that’s it. That is the whole point. He saved Malfoy more than once. That’s what he does. Still. To be an Auror…to save lives. “I can’t understand why…”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead is the new alive

\--+--  
The information about Draco Malfoy’s death was vague to say the least, but it was breaking news nevertheless.

~+~  
“I’m telling you,” Harry says, already annoyed at this point with her, “I saw Malfoy yesterday.”

“Of course you did.” She answers softly and she has this look again. If she pets him right now he will scream – he just KNOWS it. Honestly! Hermione with her ‘unresolved business’ – stuff. What unresolved business? He doesn’t have any unresolved business with Draco Malfoy for Merlin’s sake!

“I’ve seen him near The Cauldron.” He answers trying to be patient.

“He’s dead. Harry. You know that. Maybe it was someone who looked a little bit like him?”

“I know that he is supposed to be dead…but…” he says, but he can’t finish because really it could have been someone who looked like him. It COULD. But he knows better. Even after all these years he would be able to recognize him. “Maybe.” He says frustrated and sits down. She smiles and pours him some tea. She’s so damn reasonable, he thinks as he sips Earl Grey from his cup. It’s really hard to be all crazy with her. Maybe a good thing after all he thinks smiling.

~+~  
It’s not his imagination. It’s not. He’s doing paperwork in a café when he sees him again. Just a pale blur in the corner of his eye, too fast to really see it. HIM. Could be someone else…totally could. Malfoy wasn’t/isn’t the only blonde, pale, pointy git in the whole world. He isn’t. So he can’t be sure. Harry packs his papers and stands up. He doesn’t follow the maybe-Malfoy. His lunch break is nearly over, after all. And Malfoy is dead. Everyone says that, everyone knows.  
He can’t work, he can’t eat, and sleep is out of question too.

~+~  
“It’s because you feel guilty.” Hermione says. Wow, he thinks, really? But sarcasm is uncalled for.

“I don’t.”

“Harry…”

“God, yeah…maybe. It’s…you know. I saved his life.” Harry answers because that’s it. That is the whole point. He saved Malfoy more than once. That’s what he does. Still. To be an Auror…to save lives. “I can’t understand why…”

“You couldn’t save him?” she asks gently. He nods. Maybe that is the reason why Malfoy hounds him.

“I shouldn’t feel like that…” he says after a while. He really shouldn’t. It isn’t his fault.

~+~  
He’s out with Ron, Dean and Luna on a Friday as he sees him again. Just a blond head and a glimpse of a pointy chin. “I will be right back.” He says to Luna and makes for the door. He doesn’t even wait for an answer. He needs to know.  
The street outside is empty. No sign whatsoever of Malfoy or any other human being. Faint laughter…no Malfoy.

~+~  
Hermione looks worried.  
“It’s nothing, okay?” he says. She pours tea and just looks at him. “I can’t let it go.” He sighs. He just can’t.

“I know.” She answers, not smiling. She knows his obsessions. Maybe better than he knows them. It’s not that she doesn’t believe him, he knows, it’s that she knows he believes it. That is what worries her. It should worry him too. It doesn’t. He isn’t afraid of losing his mind – what with Voldemort in his head and a piece of his soul…so losing his mind? Whatever. He can deal with that. And besides: he isn’t going crazy.

“Don’t worry.” He says smiling, holding the cup – not drinking.

“I can’t help it.” She answers.

“Neither can I,” he says.

~+~  
It’s a Saturday evening as he sees him again. He’s just heading home after a too long day with too few saved lives and too much death, and there he is. Standing near a bench in the moonlight. Looking like a ghost or something out of a fairy tale. Harry just stares a few seconds and then he’s near Malfoy. Invading his personal space. Malfoy startles and looks up. His eyes narrow, but there is no malice, it’s just pure defence and no recognition.

“Yes?” he asks. Odd, Harry thinks. Really, really odd. And the oddest thing of all is that Malfoy looks like a seventeen year old. He just looks the same. And that just can’t be. Harry doesn’t know what to say. “Well?” Malfoy asks again, one brow rising.

“I…” he stutters. Great. Just great.

“Are you hitting on me?”

“What? NO!” Harry answers because. No. Just NO.

“Well?”

“I thought you were someone I knew once…” he answers. It’s, after all, the only answer he can give.

“I’m not.” Malfoy says.

“No…you’re not.”

~+~  
The first thing he wants to do is tell Hermione but…he doesn’t know what she would do about the whole thing. He could tell his boss but…yeah. That would go over well. So he doesn’t tell anyone. He just tries to find out what the hell happened to Malfoy and why he isn’t older…and why he isn’t dead!

~+~  
It’s a crazy thing to do, but he does it anyway. So the next Saturday he’s there again and to his surprise Malfoy is too.

“You.” Malfoy says.

“Yes…”

“What do you want?”

“Why are you here?” Harry asks.

“I can’t stay away…” Malfoy answers. He sounds puzzled, annoyed, a little bit scared.

“I’m heading home…” Harry says.

“Oh?”

“Yes…” God, why is this so awkward?

“So, what are you doing?”

“I’m an Auror.” Harry answers.

“Oh.”

“What?”

“You really don’t look like one.” Malfoy answers with a smile. Harry can’t help it he smiles back.

~+~  
Sleep is out of question again, but for other reasons. The thing is he likes this Malfoy. He likes him a lot. Week after week he grows more attached to him and he thinks Malfoy does too. He just doesn’t think about the mystery that is Malfoy. He doesn’t want to.

“You seem happier.” Hermione says.

“I think I am.” He answers.

“That’s nice, Harry.” She pours tea and he doesn’t tell her about Malfoy.

~+~  
He kisses Malfoy for the first time after the seventh week. Malfoy kisses back, softly, hesitant with a quiet noise at the back of his throat.  
The noise doesn’t let him sleep the whole week. Maybe it’s the feel of Malfoy’s soft, cold lips too.

“Hermione?”

“Yes?”

“I think…I’m in love.” He says. It’s not what he wanted to say. He wanted to tell her everything about Malfoy.

“Really?” she smiles; of course she did figure that out already.

“Yes.” He smiles back and takes a sip of his tea.

~+~  
By the time he first sleeps with Malfoy, and he is Draco now, he is pretty good at ignoring things.  
He ignores that he sleeps with a seventeen year old kid.  
He ignores that this kid used to hate him.  
He ignores that there isn’t a scar where there should be one.  
He ignores that there is a scar where there shouldn’t be one.  
But he’s captivated by Draco’s flushed skin, the moans, soft whimpers. The nails on his back, how his own hands look on these narrow hips, how Draco whispers his name when he comes all over Harry’s hand.

~+~  
And then one day in autumn Draco doesn’t come, is just gone. Harry is a wreck. He doesn’t know what to do with himself for days.  
So he does the only thing he can. He goes to see Narcissa.  
Her eyes are red when he enters the hall, but she smiles at him. Not friendly just…like she always did.

“Where is he?” he asks because she must know. If anyone she would.

“He’s dead.” She answers. He can see her grief. Can she grieve for him for all these years?

“I saw him two weeks ago.” Harry says. He doesn’t say I slept with him, kissed him, watched him sleep. Maybe she knows.

“He’s dead.” She repeats. She sounds sad, not angry or defensive, just sad. They’re just standing there, staring at each other, feeling the loss, the grief. “I can’t bring him back…” she says softly, quietly. He barely hears her.

“But you did…” he whispers. She nods.

“I did. But I can’t do it again.” The silence that fallows her words is deafening.

“Maybe…” he begins. She shakes her head.

“You can’t,” she says firmly. He doesn’t believe her.

“You don’t know that!”

“I know you.” Narcissa answers. Maybe, he thinks, maybe not.

“I want to know.” She looks up, a cruel smile on her lips – she reminds him of Bellatrix, she is a Black after all - but she nods and tells him anyway.

~+~  
Turns out, he thinks, as he opens Draco’s chest with bloody hands, she knows him after all. There is nothing she wouldn’t do to have him back. And she knows that there is nothing Harry wouldn’t do for the ones he loves.  
She sacrificed her husband – she must have loved him or the spell wouldn’t have worked.  
He sacrificed Neville – this year. He doesn’t want to think about a time where there is no one left to steal a loving heart from.

End


End file.
